Campanula, with such an obvious interests in all things "seeds" I am thinking that this Canadian site and its accompanying blog might be of interest to you:

"Botanically Inclined"

Another Canadian seed source that might interest Campanula and others is Gardens North.

I have slowly been doing more seed sowing as this garden obsession spreads in my person. In this neck of the woods they have Seedy Saturday or Seedy Sunday events usually starting mid-winter when everyone is about ready to lose their minds. These are community seed exchange events that come at just the right time!

Yes, I have attended a few of those...but was disappointed that my carefully packaged and labelled flower seeds were totally ignored while a huge scrum for out of date parsnips and beetroot seeds almost caused fights.

In the UK at least, such events are usually conflated with allotments and vegetable growing...I was uncomfortably aware that I was in the smallest minority of flower growers - in fact, a number of allotment societies actually put strict rules in place that vegetables must be the dominant crop. I have been leasing my plot for many years and have seen trends come and go...and anyway, I tell detractors I am providing for pollinators and they should be grateful.

The ones I've experienced here have been great - usually there's an area where community groups and sellers are promoting their stuff, an area for presentations and lectures, and an area for the actual seed exchange, which has a wide variety of all kinds of plants. One of my favourite annual events!

I definitely agree with the principle, Lalennoxa, even if I tend to not go to the Seedy Sunday events...and if the emphasis was less on veggies, I would be more enthused. Mind, the grow your own craze has peaked and is now wearing down a little in the UK...moving towards things like community orchards and herb gardens (which to my mind, given our tiny gardens) is the best way to make use of limited space while maintaining that all important community sharing aspect. On an unrelated note, I have also noticed more local councils are moving away from the uninspiring seasonal bedding (right now, it is mangy looking pansies and weather-beaten chunks of bellis and wallflower)...and more towards seed grown flower beds containing coreopsis, flax, cosmos, larkspur, poppies, rudbeckias, scabious and cornflowers...often with a help yourself invitation to pick bouquets. Naturally, our wealthy, but drearily unimaginative council is not amongst the innovators so I guess it's time for the e.mail and letter writing campaign to start up.

Yes, like you I would be definitely less enthused if the events were solely vegetable related, but from what I've seen, there is something for everyone in the plant world. Though the day they have aroid related plants, I will probably pass out in pure ecstasy. Though I think I may have contributed a bunch of canna lily tubers last year, can't remember.

Wow. Looks like your city councils and mine are weaved in the same fabric. Except mine is both not wealthy and unimaginative. Last year they had an interesting bed in the downtown area filled with ornamental vegetables, like kale - quite different than the cheap annuals they always do. I asked what that was about - turns out it wasn't even their initiative, but 'guerilla gardening' - the beds would have sat empty otherwise. We all had a good chuckle over that one - one of the more interesting city initiatives was not even their own.

There are few decent seed lists/distributions run by generalist
perennial associations in the United States. The North American Rock
Garden Society has a reasonable selection of non-alpine perennials (in
addition to the Cute Little Hard-To-Raise Buns they specialize in). I
ordered a few things from the AHS years ago when I was a member, but
their selection was so poor I didn't bother with it again.The RHS
(and Hardy Plant Society too as I recall) decided long ago to stop including American members in their annual seed sales, due to poorly
thought-out American law restricting importation of seed.

Too bad.

Yep, that is a bummer, Rusty...and even more teeth-gritting when we see the amount of importation, often involving organic packing materials absolutely heaving with micro-life..,plus it is about money too. Having enough cash to support the layers of bureaucracy involved in licencing as an accredited vendor...blah blah

This is my first year as a Hardy Plant Member - I am faintly ashamed to say I joined for precisely this reason - access to seeds - although the quarterly journal is pretty good too.

I find that societies in general are great ways to find out just how much is too much. The daffodil society, the historic iris preservation society, the North American Rock Garden Society, the mid Atlantic HP society, the American Primrose Society... all of these have exchanges of bulbs or seeds, or just have members who want you to be as addicted as they've become. Here many of the seed lists come out around the Christmas holiday and it's the perfect time to sit around with a tray of chocolates and Christmas cookies and explore the possibilities of hundreds of plants which you never even suspected you NEED.

Was it necessary to grow several types of prickly pear from seed? Absolutely not! But every day all summer I checked the little seedlings and they will be my most amazing plant ever.... until I need that spot for the next most amazing plant!

Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of patented and cloned and tissue cultured plants in the garden, which perform exactly to the expected and predicted tag information, but I find that the surprise of some South African wildflower or the uniqueness of some oddly colored wild onion from Kazakhstan adds so much to the garden.

So we will see what strikes the fancy this year. Dianthus are so easy and there are practically a billion out there and I have a dry open spot so who knows :)

Exactly so, Katob. I also have a packet of d.carthusianorum and the darker c.cruentus...and struggle with growing far too many plants - although I am known for my giveaways. Sometimes, said plants do not even make it into the ground, languishing in pots until I have grown them on to blooming...then off to some nearby park, local cemetery, forgotten corner of the allotment or even empty public planters...a sort of unplanned guerilla gardening...although I do enjoy watching my little plants furtively surviving (or not) around town.

Bad person - I have never grown opuntia from seed...and now you have me thinking!

For some reason I don't have a lot of luck growing from seed. But, even so, I tried once again this year because I wanted more than just several pricey plants and hoped to save a bundle by sprouting some seeds. So this summer I sowed seeds of Echinacea pallida 'Hula Dancer' and Ratibida pinnata. My usual luck - nothing has sprouted. So I've left the seed tray sitting on the corner of my deck through the winter hoping the seeds will sprout after winter chilling. I guess I'm a pessimistic because I'll be very surprised if they do.

If I do have success, what will I do with the extras? Potting them up until they get big enough to give away sounds like a chore, but OTOH, it sounds like a good way to make new friends :-)

My big dream would be to add any potted plants to my garage sale - that would be the same garage sale I've been planning for the past 5 years since I've moved here! Which reminds me, I must think of a good date for it next year...

Echolane I am also going to sow some hula dancer seeds this year but I will be winter sowing them as I recently read that they do benefit from a cold period.

Mmm, me too - car boot sale...which I never get around to. Definitely hang onto the seeds pots, echolane...and sow some more as well - gotta get out of this fail mentality. Seeds really want to grow...and if they don't, it is just because we haven't unlocked the germination trigger or the seeds were not viable in the first place. My trick is to sow bloody loads of them - I can support maybe 30 species failing without too much fuss because there will be another 70 which sprout...and then you really do get to the problematic parts.

Opuntia from seed. Slow. Very, very slow.

The best way to grow any kind of opuntia is with cuttings and there are many places to easily get them + they are available in trades (especially on Dave's Garden). Any little piece will grow if the end is stuck in dryish soil or it can just be a pad laying on the ground or for that matter, a bunch of homeless pads sitting in a bucket or old pot that got cut off last year, will root and bloom without any soil at all.

One of the worst downsides of growing opuntia is if you don't collect the pears you end up with the cutest little crop of volunteers but --- beware of the dog--------I've set my hand or bent my knee down on a carpet of these babies a number of times and spent the next hour with the tweezers. The big guy you see and sort of take care so they aren't so dangerous but the children are not so obvious and therefore a pest...they aren't as cute after that. They are quite easy to pull however, just grab the base stem under the glochid-y part and they pull right out or better yet, remove the pears.

There are a few really good cacti and succulent nurseries...and it is such a small space. It was Katob who put the seed idea in my head. It looks as though the offspring are running with the xeric bed idea so I expect some winter upheaval. It is such a great spot though - tiny little brick enclosed yard, south facing...alstroemeria is still blooming away and so is the anisodontea...and as it is already a raised bed, I am keen on experimenting. I used to have a thing for aeoniums and agaves and only gave them up because it was such a faff digging everything up for winter but keeping a permanent bed going would be interesting...and actually look pretty good with the clean 1960s lines of my house...and the geometric raised beds (we can hardly pretend these are a 'natural' part of English garden culture but as pure artifice, I reckon we can get away with it (vernacular and all that design stuff!).

Yes, and it seems from my memory that it takes at least 3 or 4 years before the babies begin to resemble mama. I remember the seedlings (not so fondly either).

Mine are two years in and hopefully next year will begin to look 'peary'. So far it's been interesting to see their different spines develop and my fingers are crossed the flowers will be interesting as well. I have no doubts someday the hatred will grow and I'll end up with a palm (or butt) full of spines -and they'll end up in the trash- but until that day comes they are just the coolest little things.

A xeric bed wouldn't be the worst idea here either. There's a miserable spot at the end of the driveway and between these and a few other bigger opuntia it might be a nice mix. I really need some companions for a few yucca. The yucca were the coolest little things a few years ago but are now becoming the coolest big things as they outgrow the temporary spot I had them in. They're another totally unnecessary plant which is probably a weed out west, but it's hopefully a pink tinted form of soapweed and as it is the foliage already shows much promise.

I try not to let the unplanted seedling pots weigh too heavily on my conscience. Prior to the first summer getaway I try to shove as many as possible in every open nook and cranny, prior to the first frost I try and get everything else in. Any unsprouted seeds or pots with tiny bulb seedlings get put by the compost where I can throw a bit of protective mulch on top. Easy come easy go and I try to be ruthless with my thinning since I rarely need more than a half dozen seedlings... even if a couple hundred have sprouted :)